Yamaha gearless scooters soon in India

Yamaha is lining up a splash in the Indian two-wheeler mart with an innovative gearless scooter. India Yamaha Motor, the wholly-owned subsidiary of Yamaha Motor Company of Japan is planning to enter into the gearless scooters segment, said an industry report.

Reports also hinted that Yamaha India would hit the market with a range of other models too. The company is said to be ready with two models that will be launched by next year. As if in an effort to ensure growth in sales, its marketing and promotion team is carrying out a major drive across cities and its suburbs making potential two- wheeler buyers aware of the Yamaha brand once again. Free test rides of its newly-launched bikes are also being extended.

The company seems to be in a rush to be on the growth path when the Indian automobile industry as such is seeing a declining trend. India Yamaha Motor has said that  it is going in for a ramp up of its production line. It is being said that production would rise from as many as 350 units per day to 500 units per day at Surajpur facility in UP.

Besides, the company is also planning to push up production capacity to 8 lakh units per annum at its existing unit by 2010, from the current 5 lakh units. The company has two facilites in India, at Faridabad in Haryana and Surajpur.

With new models, including the gearless scooter, coming up soon, the company is currently on a dealership expansion spree. It plans to have about 1,500 dealers, touch points and sub-dealers.

The company currently sells the MT01 (1670 cc), YZF-R1 (998 cc), FZ-16, YZF-R15, Gladiator Type SS and RS (125 cc), Gladiator Graffiti (125cc), G5 (106 cc), Alba (106 cc) and Crux (106 cc). The new two bikes in the 125 cc above segment and the proposed gearless scooter would add to Yamaha’s presence in the Indian bike mart.